


Delicato

by rukafais



Series: an endless song [8]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, being cold is an excuse to cuddle shamelessly forever right, clearly, thats the entire purpose of snow in shipping fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 03:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17716790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: meaning: delicatelySometimes, the weather of dead kingdoms isn’t terribly ideal for a troupe that thrives on fire and bears warmth. In the long time between performances where it’s too chilly to venture out, Grimm gets maudlin, and Brumm finds other ways to occupy his thoughts.





	Delicato

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I should not have stayed up so late to write this cos boy I am TIRED. Apologies for any errors that might crop up.

It’s snowing outside.

Brumm doesn’t mind it - well, he doesn’t mind most things, really. He rarely feels strongly enough about anything to hate it. He thinks, mostly, that it’s pretty in its own way, if something of a nuisance occasionally; pristine white quickly turns to freezing walls, or slush, or ice that makes it hard to walk without slipping. He doesn’t really get cold, either; he simply bears it, and it never seems too much for him to stand.

Divine takes it with her usual unflappable attitude. Rain or shine, snow or sleet or wind or storm, she never seems to change much, though she can tell with accuracy when cold weather will become freezing, inhospitable weather.  
  
It’s not magic. But sometimes, Brumm sees her touch at the mask she wears and frown slightly, and that’s enough of an indicator as to where it comes from.  
  
She has old wounds, old scars. And though she’s not afraid to show them- they still pain her occasionally, enough to break that smile.  
He doesn’t ask. Divine volunteers information so easily, anyway, so one day he’ll learn.

But it’s his master who feels the cold, most of all, and the one who worries him the most. Weather not conductive to flame and warmth doesn’t make him irritable; Brumm wouldn’t fear or fuss at that. It doesn’t even make him merely tired, which the musician is used to.

When the weather is achingly, bone-chillingly cold, Grimm becomes sluggish and lethargic in a way that mirrors a kind of sickness. It’s not the pervasive pain that comes with holding the burning heart of a god, but it’s no less concerning.

In times gone by, Brumm would fuss and panic and awkwardly try to wrap him in blankets. Now, though, he listens to the sound of his master’s heartbeat, forehead resting against Grimm’s shoulder, holding him comfortably.

The beat of his master’s heart is no weaker than it was before, his warmth is no less, but that doesn’t comfort him much. Grimm laughs, soft and strained, and caresses his cheek. Touched with his concern.

“You worry far too much, my dear musician. I will be fine,” he murmurs, voice low. “This will pass.”

“ _Will be_ means little _now_ , master,” and the shake in Brumm’s voice is impossible to hide. The scarlet eyes that are usually so sharp soften with a slowness that twists something in his chest.

“You’re very good to me, you know,” his master sighs, finally relaxing fully into his musician’s embrace, saying nothing else. For the first time, Brumm finds that such silence makes him nervous.

He tries not to worry. He really does.

He tries _so hard_ to clear his mind of doubts that he eventually falls asleep from the exertion of fretting, and upon waking finds himself hopelessly tangled in his master’s cloak and his master’s limbs.

It should probably make him startled, or surprised, or more embarrassed. He should probably be making apologies and excuses to leave. He’s fairly certain he would have done that, once.

Grimm rumbles faintly in protest as his musician shifts, and Brumm stills his (very weak) attempts to extricate himself.

He’s still warm. It’s comforting. And there’s a long time yet until their performance here.

It’s hardly a fight, really.

Brumm gives in easily; in a moment of uncharacteristic impulse, he tucks his head under Grimm’s chin, listening to the sound of his master’s breathing, a heartbeat’s steady rhythm.

There’s another sound at his bold action; a barely audible purr. It’s a low, pleased vibration he feels more than hears.

“Mrmm...being smug isn’t dignified, master,” Brumm chastises, but it’s a drowsy complaint. He gets only another pleasant, low sound in response, and clawed fingers gently preening at his horns.

It’s easy to fall asleep, given that affection. He appreciates it.

He thinks, too, with the small perceptions that come from knowing someone for years beyond count, that Grimm, too, is grateful for the physical contact. A solid, steady reminder of the world beyond that red-tinted nightmare realm that it is his duty to walk, night after night, over and over.

_(The Nightmare King slumbers in scarlet chambers, in the veins of a patchwork heart, dark and lonely. Sundered, centuries past, a shadow without the light that once cast it, whose presence demanded his._

_It is a lonely, immortal existence; the heart will continue to beat, the flame will continue to consume the nightmares of the world, until the world itself dies and the dream ends, until there is nothing left to dream or to bear nightmares._

_The Nightmare King desires and cares for little, but if he can be said to want anything beyond fulfillment of the duty he was made for, it could be said he desires his mortal vessel's happiness.)_

In these quiet, vulnerable moments, he feels reminded of the Troupe's true purpose, if it can be called that. To take the offer, to live and breathe and walk alongside the vessel of a god, to keep him company, so the burden of duty and the inevitability of death does not shatter him under its weight;

a god making himself mortal, making himself two in one once again, to remember what it was like to be happy.

* * *

Grimm’s lethargy persists, though he seems to feel better with company. Sometimes he sits with Divine, and they talk idly of -- something that makes them both cackle loudly, something Brumm can hear even through his practice; sometimes he likes to have both of them there, talking of old performances and old lands.

Sometimes, he requests Brumm’s company and nothing else.

“It reminds me of old memories,” he says in the silence. Outside, snow falls and chokes the world of sound. “They come more often, when the weather is unfavorable.”

“Mrmm. Not yours.”

It’s not a question. More than anything, if Grimm can truly be said to fear much at all, he fears being lost in the memories of predecessors and incarnations past; that he will not be unique, just a vessel possessed.

( _Has it ever happened? the musician had asked, once._

_No, his master had answered, but something doesn’t need to happen for it to be feared._

_It’s all too easy to become lost in memories, my friend. I dearly hope such a fate never befalls you._

_His smile had been painful to look at. Even the memory hurts._ )

“They are old, old injuries,” Grimm says quietly, distantly, watching the outside world. “The wounds were not sustained by me, nor to any of those who came before me - except the very first. And yet.”

He shrugs and pulls his cloak around him, as if feeling the cold more keenly. Brumm notices that his hand hovers at his chest, clenches tightly, and never quite loosens all the way.

“Master,” the musician says, hesitant, and then stops, because he has little in the way of words even at the best of times, and this is not even remotely the best of times.

But maybe words aren’t needed, and a silence shared is enough. He can’t claim to understand the depth of those injuries or the weight of the burden - perhaps he never will - but maybe he doesn’t need to.

Grimm will never quite know the weight of all Brumm has lost, that emptiness that has torn out parts of him that can only be healed and scarred over and not truly returned. ( _He has never asked, out of politeness, and leaves Brumm to his reveries, when they happen._ ) In turn, Brumm will never quite know the burdens of the Nightmare King’s vessel, what that duty demands. ( _Sometimes Grimm looks older and more exhausted and ancient in a way that no mortal can match or carry._ )

But there is a kind of comfort in difference, in knowing that the same weight doesn’t fall upon someone else’s shoulders. It makes the world lighter.

The musician moves close and wraps his arms around his master from behind.

He’s not tall enough to rest his head on Grimm’s (like his master delights in doing unexpectedly), but he’s more than tall enough to tuck his head into the crook of Grimm’s neck.

He preoccupies himself with finding a comfortable spot to rest his chin on his master’s shoulder and carefully doesn’t think about how intimate this is.

“Why, my dear musician, you get bolder every day,” his master murmurs. The clear pleasure in his voice is enough to make Brumm’s face feel embarrassingly hot and for Grimm to smile crookedly (because of course he noticed). “Though not too bold, it seems.”

He mumbles something incoherent because he can’t find the words for a response. Grimm laughs at that, soft and low.

“Ah, I appreciate it very much, my friend.” One clawed hand cups the musician’s face, a gentle touch; his eyes crinkle into red, pleased slits. “Thank you. Your presence-  frees me from such dreary thoughts.”

Brumm can already tell by the way Grimm settles into him, by the way he no longer startles or stiffens at this new form of intimacy ( _stranger and more vulnerable and more fragile than any performance_ ), that he relaxes when he’s around. It’s a rare privilege to have. Hearing it in words is...

Well, he doesn’t know the word for it.

But in the end, it doesn’t really matter - the actions are enough.

They stay like that for a long while, sharing a comfortable silence. While Brumm finds it doesn’t change his opinion of snow that much, after that day he no longer finds cold weather quite as worrisome as he did before.


End file.
